


An Embarrassment of Rubies

by SusieBeeca



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Very very very slight mention of shipping, but you have to guess, did you know there's no collective noun for rubies?, not nearly enough f/f
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 02:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10401354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusieBeeca/pseuds/SusieBeeca
Summary: Ruby is mad at Ruby, who is angry with Ruby, who's upset with Ruby, who's furious with Ruby. The trip from Neptune back to Earth does not go as smoothly as they had hoped.NOW WITH ILLUSTRATION!





	

“I’m talking to you, soldier! At attention!”

Ruby’s teeth were grinding as she paced back and forth in front of the Ruby she’d cornered. “Shoulders straight!”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured as she looked down at the toe she was scuffing against the floor.

“Neptune was a bust, and I’m going to see to it I whip you all into shape by the time we get back!” she snapped. “I said _shoulders straight!_ ”

“I’m soooory!” she said again, drawing out the vowel.

Ruby looked mad enough to spit. “And don’t whine like that! You sound like a little _pearl_!”

A deeper red coloured her cheeks, and she put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean to whine, Ruby. I-I know it must be hard for you to listen to my voice.” She meekly shrugged. “I mean, what with your condition and all.”

She stopped mid-stride, and then very slowly turned around, her right eye blazing. “My what?”

Nervously, she glanced up at her commander’s face, making a point of darting her gaze between her eye and her gem. “Oh, you know... when gems have a defect, it means the rest of their senses get stronger. To compensate.”

A tendon popped out against the flesh of her neck. “DEFECT?!”

“Your eye,” she said, widening her own. “Ruby told me that was a defect, and that’s why you don’t like listening to whining.” Then she giggled shyly. “Gee, your hearing must be soooo strong.”

By now flecks of spittle were forming at the corners of her mouth. “Which Ruby said that?”

She solemnly pointed across the ship, and with a primal roar her commander went storming over to the Ruby who was obliviously swinging her legs under her seat.

Ruby’s head turned to the side when she noticed another gem scuttling closer to her, a fingernail nervously twisting in her teeth. “Ooh my gosh, she was really shouting at you! W-what was that all about?”

With a supercilious pat on the head, she replied “Don’t you worry about that, newbie. It was really nothing.”

“That’s a lot of shouting about nothing.”

“No, really. Really, it was nothing.” She waved her hand and gave a little tut-tut. “You don’t want to know what she called you, anyway.”

Her mouth popped open, and a waver appeared in both her eyes and voice. “Wh-what? She said something bad... about _me?_ ”

Ruby gently wound her fingers through the newbie’s hair and stroked through the curls. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m your friend, right?”

She bobbed her head in an eager nod, her face nearly splitting apart with a smile.

“So you know you can always come talk to me if you feel bad about being called a...”

When the last word left her lips, the tears bubbling up around Ruby’s lashes suddenly burst forth, and she ran off wailing, both hands over her face.

She was still watching her run around flailing when something seized the front of her uniform and _yanked_. “What just happened with the newbie?!” Ruby shrieked, her shoulder glinting as she shook her fist. “You tell me right now or I’ll wallop you halfway to Pluto!”

“Oh, hey, easy, it’s not a big deal,” she said and she carefully extricated herself from the iron-fisted grip. “She just lost a bet, and she’s a little sore.”

“A bet?” She quickly scanned around the ship, hopping from foot to foot as she changed her stance. “There was gambling going on, and I was not informed?”

A quiet chuckle moved up Ruby’s throat, smooth as honey. “You couldn’t have placed bets anyway. We were betting on you---well, some of us were.”

“Only SOME of you?!”

She scratched the back of her neck and looked away. “Um, I kinda forgot how it all went down, but she”---here she gestured towards the rest of their team, who by now were in various states of disarray---“said she’d always win against you since you’re kind of a weakling---” Both hands clapped over her mouth. “Oops!”

Ruby’s eye twitched. Then her lips pulled back in a snarl. Then she ran screaming at her teammates, both hands in whirling fists. “I’LL SHATTER YOU!”

She only had a moment to suck the smile back down when a gentle but stern hand landed on her shoulder and turned her around so they were face-to-face. With an authoritative tug on her suspenders, Ruby said with what was clearly false bravado: “So, care to tell me what’s going on over there?”

“I’m not... really sure.” Biting her lip, she managed a convincing blush. “But I think it’s kinda personal,” she added in a mumble.

She eyed her up and down. “I can take it. Tell me exactly what you know.”

“Umm...” With a conspiratorial come-hither motion, she leaned in to whisper in her ear: “Ruby told me you were her absolute second-favourite.”

She jerked back as if she’d been slapped. “Only second favourite?”

“Mm-hm.”

“But---b-but...“ she spluttered, looking from one red face to another. “But if there’s two Rubies ahead of me, who’s her favourite?”

 Her hands clasped behind her back and she twisted bashfully, like a newly-formed gem who’d just learned a bad word. “Her lover.”

“LOV---?!” How curious. Ruby never knew her boss could stutter. “I---but---I w-was sup-posed---her f-first---I---who’s her lover??”

The scuffmarks she’d left on the floor were still there, and she re-traced them, this time with her heel. “ _ **The cute one.**_ ”

It only took a second for Ruby to completely lose her mind.

Had they been better at counting, the fighting Rubies may have noticed that four of them were currently making up the writhing mass on one side of the ship---two brawling like corrupted quartzes, one tugging at her hair and bawling, one hopping around the rest of them chanting “Why? What? Why?” while adding a few punts for good measure.

When, from somewhere within the Ruby-ball, a single, incoherent question was bleated, they all jumped apart for a second, pointed at each other, screamed “ _ **SHE**_ DID!” then fell back into a mess of kicking legs and pounding arms.

The remaining Ruby was perched in the captain’s chair---where she usually was forbidden to sit---peering at the chaos. The wonderful, _delicious_ chaos.

“What an unfortunate turn of events!” she exclaimed, tenting her fingers. “...It would be _terrible_ if this happened again.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I had a few glasses of wine and thought "Can I write a Ruby story without using Steven's nicknames? How many times can I use the word 'Ruby' in one drabble?"
> 
> Twenty-one. The answer to the second question is twenty-one. The word no longer makes sense to me.
> 
> So, yeah, Navy has easily become my favourite little red bud. Even though she did make Leggy cry here, which should be a crime punishable by death. Or spanking.


End file.
